Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
RISE AND SHINE
A spectacular film narrated by Robert Redford follows some of Earth’s most amazing animals for 24 eventful hours, from one dawn to the next
The term for a group of pandas is an embarrassment – and the term for a group of camera operators who dress up as pandas in order to film the adorable creatures without being rumbled should probably be the same!
‘The guys had to leave their vanity at the door and pull on their costumes,’ laughs Fan Lixin, one of the directors of sumptuous wildlife documentary Earth: One Amazing Day, which is getting its first television showing tonight on BBC2 following its cinema release last year. ‘They even had to smear themselves in panda poo so the cubs would not be alarmed by any unfamiliar smells and race away from the cameras. It all worked. The cubs were hoodwinked, and we got the most amazing footage!’
The giant pandas, filmed chomping on bamboo in China, are probably the cutest of the 38 wild species that feature in the show, which is a breathtaking trip around our planet in 24 hours. It captures natural events during the course of the day that demonstrate the way in which lives are governed by the sun. ‘We are driven by the rhythm of night and day, and it all starts with the rising of the sun,’ comments the film’s narrator, Hollywood legend Robert Redford. ‘One hint of morning sunlight and we respond in so many different ways.’
The film begins with a flock of redcrowned cranes in flight at sunrise in China, while in the Galapagos Islands marine iguanas slowly come to life, unable to get going until their bodies are warmed by the sun. Later in the morning there are far more dramatic scenes in Africa, as two giraffes battle for territory, and a baby zebra tries to cross a raging river teaming with hungry crocodiles.
In the Atlantic in the early afternoon heat a family of sperm whales take life easier, sleeping vertically – although a year-old, 15-foot long baby won’t settle. ‘It was very inquisitive and kept knocking against our camera,’ says executive producer Neil Nightingale.
On an island off the coast of Panama an adorable pygmy three- toed sloth and its baby snooze in the heat, but in much colder Antarctica, there’s work to be done for a chinstrap penguin. It’s returning home from a fishing expedition, desperate to feed its family.
As the sun begins to set, some of the five million mayflies that live and die in a single day on a stretch of the Tisza river in Hungary are seen performing a vast shimmering dance just above the water.
At nightfall, we meet the rare, whiteheaded langur, an endangered monkey living in the Guangxi region of southern China. To capture it on film required
ingenuity. ‘The langurs come down to the forest to feed during the day, but in the evening, worried about potential predators, they climb back to their caves in the cliffs,’ says Neil Nightingale. ‘To film them at night, we flew 200 drones over the area, some carrying long-lens cameras to keep our distance from the creatures so as not to frighten them. The plan worked!’
The film ends where it began, with the first signs of dawn and another glorious scene featuring the red-crowned cranes. ‘It’s a remarkable journey, from dawn to dusk and beyond,’ says Robert Redford. ‘As far as we know, our planet is unique. As far as we know, one day spent here is the most amazing thing in the whole universe.’ Earth: One Amazing Day, tonight, 7.30pm, BBC2.